Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Notes on Contributors
- 1 World Englishes: An Introduction
- Part I The Making of Englishes
- Part II World Englishes Old and New
- Part III Linguistics and World Englishes
- 14 The Global Growth of English at the Grassroots
- 15 Beyond English as a Second or Foreign Language: Local Uses and the Cultural Politics of Identification
- 16 World Englishes in Cyberspace
- 17 World Englishes and Their Dialect Roots
- 18 Lexicography and World Englishes
- 19 The Relevance of World Englishes for Variationist Sociolinguistics
- 20 Multilingualism and the World Englishes
- 21 Unearthing the Diachrony of World Englishes
- 22 Corpus-Based Approaches to World Englishes
- 23 World Englishes from the Perspective of Dialect Typology
- 24 Language Acquisition and World Englishes
- Part IV Current Challenges
- Index
- References
14 - The Global Growth of English at the Grassroots
from Part III - Linguistics and World Englishes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2019
- The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes
- Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics
- The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Notes on Contributors
- 1 World Englishes: An Introduction
- Part I The Making of Englishes
- Part II World Englishes Old and New
- Part III Linguistics and World Englishes
- 14 The Global Growth of English at the Grassroots
- 15 Beyond English as a Second or Foreign Language: Local Uses and the Cultural Politics of Identification
- 16 World Englishes in Cyberspace
- 17 World Englishes and Their Dialect Roots
- 18 Lexicography and World Englishes
- 19 The Relevance of World Englishes for Variationist Sociolinguistics
- 20 Multilingualism and the World Englishes
- 21 Unearthing the Diachrony of World Englishes
- 22 Corpus-Based Approaches to World Englishes
- 23 World Englishes from the Perspective of Dialect Typology
- 24 Language Acquisition and World Englishes
- Part IV Current Challenges
- Index
- References
Summary
Varieties of English used as second or additional languages have received an enormous amount of attention in the past decades, particularly following Kachru’s pioneering work on Indian English. The sociolinguistics and the linguistic features of these Englishes have been described extensively, and corpora such as the International Corpus of English or the Global Corpus of Web-based English allow their linguistic comparison. Most descriptions and corpora are based on what have been called “educated” speakers – individuals who have successfully completed secondary education, often the elites of their various countries. However, many users of English today do not belong to societal elites but often to disadvantaged communities; frequently, they have acquired English with limited or no access to formal instruction. This chapter describes the uses and processes that can be observed with these individuals. Drawing on examples from, for instance, working-class citizens in Sweden, refugees in Europe, taxi drivers and informal traders in South Africa and Uganda, and domestic help in Hong Kong, it describes the histories and sociolinguistics of the spread of English at the grassroots of societies.
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- The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes , pp. 311 - 338Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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